People in our society have become increasingly mobile and, not coincidentally, have increasingly come to rely on their electronic devices such as laptop computers, cellular phones, hand-held personal digital assistants, etc. as they travel. These devices, moreover, have become increasingly more complex and capable of maintaining a myriad of programs as well as maintaining connections with networks such as the Internet. Telecommuting, i.e., maintaining a business office in a place other than a headquartered office such as one's home and connecting to an employer through a computer or hand-held microprocessing device, occurs across town, across the country, and even across international borders. People demand more of their electronic communication devices too. People want to be able to conduct personal and/or business financial transactions, legal transactions, communications with business associates, employers, employees, family, friends all with one device.
In a perfect world, there would be no need for security of one's information but information has been protected as long as the first secret was spoken; and as long as a person or business entity considers his/her own information confidential. An electronic device having confidential information may need only be enabled at a place of employment or other specific location and it is preferred or even required that access not be granted to the device outside of a particular locale. The devices, moreover, have become subject to thievery irrespective of the information contained therein. So, it is imperative that a person be able to restrict use of a device.
There are, moreover, a number of security schema which use geographic location as a method to restrict access to devices or to enable certain devices. The Global Positioning System (GPS) was designed for, is funded and operated by the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) although there are many thousands of civilian uses of GPS world-wide. The nominal GPS Operational Constellation consists of twenty-four satellites that orbit the earth in twelve hours. There are often more than twenty-four operational satellites as new ones are launched to replace older satellites. A satellite orbit repeats almost the same ground track as the earth turns beneath them once each day. A system of tracking stations are located around the world with the Master Control facility at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado. These monitor stations measure signals from the satellites which are incorporated into orbital models for each satellite which compute precise orbital data and clock corrections for each satellite. The Master Control station uploads the corrected orbital and clock data to the satellites. The satellites then send subsets of the orbital data to GPS receivers via radio signals all over the world. The GPS receiver processes the signals to compute position, velocity and time of the satellite and/or the receiver. Four GPS satellite signals are used to compute positions in three dimensions and the time offset in the receiver clock.
GPS has been used for years in aircraft, ships, etc. but now consumers are using GPS in computers, automobiles, cellular phones, etc. One such security system is set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 5,922,073 entitled System and Method for Controlling Access to Subject Data Using Location Data Associated with the Subject Data and a Requesting Device to Shimada. In this system, a user enters a password associated with the data, simultaneously a GPS receiver detects the location and if the location is not the proper location attributed to the data, access to the data is prohibited. Shimada restricts access only to data by two independent tests: first, the password entered must be the correct password for that data; and second, the requesting device must be in an allowable geographic location. The password itself is not associated with the geographic location. Shimada, moreover, allows access to the requesting device and limits access only to data, which under some circumstances, may be undesirable. As an example, it is more likely that a hacker will presume a password to be associated with or correlated to particular data, as in Shimada, rather than with a particular geographic location. It is easier to invoke data intrusion or hacking algorithms once access is granted to a requesting device than when the device cannot even be enabled. Additionally, inadvertent access to critical information or other applications resulting in hard-drive failure or other failures or damage to the system by, for instance, children is easier if a system is enabled and usable. Thus, more secure protection from intentional intrusion and/or accidental damage occurs when the requesting device may not even be enabled.
Another device is disclosed in a Research Disclosure 421139 entitled Automatic laptop reconfiguration based on location of May 1999 in which a GPS tracking chip within a laptop computer interacts with the operating system and other program to automatically reconfigure the system clock, time zones, telephone numbers to call for network connections, etc., upon traveling to different time zones. Access is still allowed, however, to the computer and its processes, with the attendant risks as described above.
Shimada and other art, moreover, make no accommodation for overlapping and/or adjacent geographic regions and for assigning priorities to those regions. A user is tasked with remember which password is applicable to which data and if she/he crosses a street or enters another building, may be required to enter another password. In this time of memorizing and updating our multitude of passwords, life could be simplified if only the password for the highest priority geographic region in which the electronic processing device is located need be entered. The user need not concern herself/himself with remembering which password is associated with which application or with which building at a site if the user need only enter a password for entire site and if the site password has a higher priority than the building password.
There is thus a need in the industry to restrict access to an electronic processing device by simply entering a password based on geographic location. There is a further need in the industry to allow or restrict access to a device in overlapping and/or adjacent geographic locations in terms of priority of the geographic regions.